Free Four Friends by Robyn Carr

Partnership. Perfect symbiosis.
    She didn’t know when or how the lovemaking disappeared. She had always thought it was normal for the sex drive to relax, to become better friends than lovers. She thought his libido was exactly like hers—no longer urgent. It simply went to sleep. When she thought about growing older with him, she never thought of sex being a part of their lives. Their lives were so good, their relationship so strong, it never once occurred to her they needed anything more, except maybe time.
    Honestly, if he’d said, ‘I need a good, hard, sweaty roll in the hay before I lose my mind,’ she would have laughed at him.
    They argued, yes. But they had laughed a lot, too. Their chemistry was good. She kept telling herself the marriage had such value, such depth, it just couldn’t have been all about sex. Sex was something they could’ve fixed. She wasn’t sure how but something could have been done.
    Their first week of separation was difficult at best. The kids were angry and quieter than usual until they had regular short flare-ups, outbursts that had nothing and yet everything to do with their parents living apart. Gerri watched them carefully, fully aware that few people understood how closely depression and anger were linked. Jed was absent a lot, typical for a nineteen-year-old in college with a steady girl, but when he was around he held his tongue, a feat for him. Matt, on the other hand, acted as if nothing had happened; his conversation was all about baseball.
    Jessie was in the worst shape, snotty and disrespectful, sneering sarcastically when answering her mother, muttering under her breath. “You probably didn’t notice there weren’t any chips or Cokes since you’re hardly ever here.” And “Why do I always have to stay home just because you and Daddy have this thing going on?” Once in a while Gerri heard what sounded suspiciously like the b-word directed at her. She was so awful that Gerri wanted to smack her. But then Jessie got out the photo albums, looking through the family pictures as if someone had died. As if trying to remember how they’d been before this.
    A second week passed, Gerri seeing her counselor twice a week, whole sessions during which she did little talking and a great deal of crying. She slept poorly and wondered often if Phil was finding comfort somewhere else, angry because she wasn’t finding comfort anywhere. Angrier still because she had no desire to seek out any other form of comfort. It wasn’t that she was bored with Phil sexually, there just wasn’t so much as a spark in her. How long can I do this before I say uncle? she wondered. Is it better with you as a cheater than without you as a partner?
    Then Gerri looked through the photo albums herself, left on the coffee table by Jessie. She studied their faces, hers and Phil’s, twenty years ago, fifteen, ten, five. Two years ago. He was a good-looking man who had seasoned with age and experience. She looked at herself in the pictures very critically, but she had photographed well. She had probably never qualified as beautiful, but she was handsome—five-nine, slender, long neck, high cheekbones, engaging smile. She knew she was fortunate. Tall, slim women tended to look decent in everything from shorts and jeans to cocktail dresses. She marveled at the frequency of so many shots being captured while she smiled into the camera and Phil gazed at her. And in every goddamn one of them—from twenty years ago to two, even through the time it was happening for him with someone else, they looked happy and loving. How was that possible?
    Gerri soldiered on. Walking in the early morning, driving kids to school, going to work, coming home in the evening to manage her home and family, sometimes finding Phil there using the computer in his home office after having spent time with the kids. Then she’d lie in bed at night feeling so robbed, so alone, every expectation shattered.
    * * *
    Sonja was having a